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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25212202">Beck</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/merlinus_ambrosius/pseuds/merlinus_ambrosius'>merlinus_ambrosius</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Fabled Spoils [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Prospect (2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Comfort, F/M, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 04:47:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,186</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25212202</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/merlinus_ambrosius/pseuds/merlinus_ambrosius</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ezra has a talk with his baby son.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cee/Ezra, Ezra (Prospect 2018) &amp; OMC, Ezra (Prospect 2018) X Cee (Prospect 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Fabled Spoils [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1820116</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Beck</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/irishleesh93/gifts">irishleesh93</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwaysupatnight/gifts">alwaysupatnight</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/redhouseclan/gifts">redhouseclan</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ridingbycandlelight/gifts">Ridingbycandlelight</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tears filled Cee’s eyes, so Ezra kissed her again. “Go on now. He’ll be fine. Those kids need you and the books. And we’ll be right here when you come back.” He had already kissed her and Flutter goodbye at least twice, but Cee was having a hard time leaving her baby overnight for the first time.</p><p>She nodded and swallowed hard, then took Flutter’s hand and picked up the suitcase and went out to the waiting ConVe. Flutter’s head popped up in the window and she waved both hands, but he could see Cee was biting her lip and not looking back. He felt quite a strong ache himself in the area of his heart, watching them go.</p><p>Ezra waved until Flutter couldn’t possibly see him anymore, then went back inside to his jav.</p><p>Ezra soon heard the whimpers that said Beck was waking up. He was a quiet baby, not much given to excessive crying, or fighting sleep, or insisting on having attention all day long. Not at all like Flutter, and something of a relief, truth be told. He and Cee loved both their children, but Beck was frankly much easier to parent. At least thus far, a little over three months in.</p><p>However, Ezra, remembering the way this child had kicked in the womb, was not convinced he didn’t have a will of iron too. He was probably just still figuring out when and how to exercise it.</p><p>“Hello, mister.” Ezra hadn’t picked a nickname for this one yet, but he would. He was waiting to see what creature came to mind.</p><p>The baby’s eyes focused on Ezra’s face, and then he smiled and kicked and squirmed with happiness.</p><p>It went straight to Ezra’s heart and filled it full.</p><p>He was grateful once again for his prosthetic arm so he could reach into the cradle and pick the baby up and cuddle him against his chest. The child burrowed closer.</p><p>“Well, sorry, mister, but I don’t have the proper equipment for that. We’ll get your nappy changed, then we’ll see to some grub, if that’s agreeable to you?”</p><p>He didn’t look so certain as Ezra laid him down to change him, but once he was clean and dry and Ezra blew raspberries into his tummy, he kicked and wiggled and gave a wholehearted belly laugh.</p><p>After Beck had been taken into the living room, fed (carefully following all of Cee’s detailed labels and instructions, even though Ezra had done this dozens of times), and burped, Ezra held him up while he pretended to stand on Ezra’s knees. He seemed very proud of what his fat little legs weren’t actually doing, but if the boy wanted to practice his future skills, that was fine with Ezra.</p><p>Finally the baby got tired of pretending and seemed happy just to sit on Ezra’s lap and look at him. He blew a couple of bubbles for his father to admire, then contented himself with just staring at Ezra and smiling suddenly, off and on, for no apparent reason.</p><p>“What are you seein’ when you look at me, little man?”</p><p>Beck just smiled and squirmed with delight.</p><p>By some twist of genetics, this baby had been born with dark blue eyes, and Ezra was hoping they’d turn hazel like Cee’s. Too early to tell though. These eyes, despite the color, did remind him of someone though….</p><p>The baby cooed, sounding a lot like a dove, and one eyebrow went up.</p><p>There it was. His brother, Eli, right here in this child’s face.</p><p>The tears came out of nowhere, and since there was no one here but Beck, Ezra let them fall. He’d never mourned for Eli—there had been too much to do at the time, and he had to make it to the rendezvous with his crew to get to the Green. And after that there had been plenty of other things to sorrow over.</p><p>The baby’s eyes were round and his chin was trembling when Ezra could finally speak again, but he seemed reassured when Ezra bounced him a bit. “It’s about your uncle Eli,” he told him. “He’d have liked you. But you might not have been so sure of him.”</p><p>“Hoo,” said Beck.</p><p>“Exactly,” Ezra agreed. “He could be a little rough. There was the time in the Krebine region when we had gone a day and a half without food of any kind. We decided to make a foray to a settlement to purchase some supplies, but what we didn’t know was the true nature of the settlement….” Ezra paused, and decided this wasn’t the kind of story for a child, however little he understood.</p><p>“Anyway, Eli had some excellent qualities too. He could repair anything you could break. He was generous to a fault—if he thought your luck was worse than his, he’d give you everything he owned but what he had on his back. And sometimes even that. Eli was a good skimmer pilot—but then, I taught him that.” Ezra supported the baby with his good hand while he wiped his eyes with the other.</p><p>“Oh, and then there’s the channelrat story. I’ll tell you that someday. It’s a good one. Even your mama likes it.” He winked.</p><p>“You have that little trick with your eyebrow that he could do. Ah, and he never could grow a respectable beard, only this patchy mess like I’ve got.” He fingered his jaw, then tickled the baby’s chin. Beck convulsed in silent giggles. “Let’s hope you got your grandpa Damon’s genes for that. And nothin’ else of his,” he muttered.</p><p>Ezra searched his mind for some more appropriate anecdotes of Eli, but decided to stick with a cautionary tale, about the time Eli puked on the only clean shirt Ezra’d had to his name. Beck looked back at him solemnly, his eyes big, taking it all (or none of it) in, and finally ending with two creases between his eyebrows that Ezra recognized from the mirror.</p><p>By now Ezra’s eyes had dried and he lifted the little fellow up onto his chest, with his face against Ezra’s neck. The baby sighed and snuggled in, and Ezra fished up the blanket from the arm of the couch and tucked it around him. “I didn’t have the opportunity to say goodbye to Eli in person, but this helped. It helped a lot, little mister.”</p><p>The baby heaved another huge sigh, and Ezra rubbed his warm and solid little back. Would this quiet child named after water be the epitome of still waters running deep? And he wondered, yes, he wondered, if healing was in his nature, because Ezra felt better, a lot better, a weight off his spirit, having had that storm of weeping in this baby’s restful presence.</p><p>The baby squirmed and belched, and Ezra had to chuckle. Well, he was just a baby after all.</p><p>But still…</p><p>Any child of Cee’s was going to be extraordinary, if his own genes didn’t cancel hers out. This little one would bear watching.</p><p>Ezra was profoundly grateful to be the father to do it.</p>
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